Adventures on a Budget

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Days 42 - 43: Mother's Day with Elaine, Jay, and Family!

One of the great things about the eastern leg of this journey is all the friends and family we've been able to see. When we left Herb and Gayle's we made the long journey south, about 20 miles, to catch up with my cousin Elaine and her family.

They're an awesome family who welcomed us into their fold right away! We felt right at home.

Elaine, getting her grill on!

Elaine and I tried to figure out the last time we'd seen one another and finally gave up. Doesn't matter anyway, we just picked up where we left off!

We have great memories from when we were kids and all the family vacations and holidays we spent together.

Elaine and her husband Jay are always in the midst of some home improvement project so we got to tag along on a couple of trips to the hardware store. It was refreshingly normal since this is the kind of thing we'd be doing back home!

Family time! Elaine and Jay have four great kids (and two awesome dogs) that don't mind spending some time with their folks. We really enjoyed being part of the family for a couple of days.

And the food (have we mentioned the food?)

Emily effortlessly whipped up this delicious dessert! Angie says she's gonna have to try out this recipe when we get home.

Meanwhile, Britton probably has a second career as a dog trainer.

Kipper made two new friends of the canine variety, Taz and Tonks.

Mother's Day brunch and with such a handsome family!

We weren't with our own mom's for Mother's Day so it was a treat to be included in Elaine's celebration.

Thanks to Elaine, Jay, Emily, Britton, John, and Jacob (and Taz and Tonks) for a great visit!

After enjoying our time in St. Louis, we headed south to Memphis to visit... Graceland! Elvis was only 22 when he purchased the col...

Travel Wisdom by Paul Theroux

You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time. Travel is not merely the business of being bone-idle, but also an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy - being actively offensive as fugitive freeloaders.

Life Wisdom by Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

About

We met many many moons ago in Austin, TX (please don't move there). Angie went to UT and worked in non-profits as a program manager. Greg worked in various fields and played the drums. We lived, we worked, we laughed, we played. Then, in 2011, one of us had a birthday that didn't sit well and convinced the other one to quit her job and travel the U.S. in a tiny (TINY) RV with our dog. The other one went along with it because, what the heck else was she to do? and packed up the TINY RV with their not-so-tiny dog and they traveled for a year. 43 U.S. states and 7 Canadian provinces later, we're still together and now both are 110% sold on the travel thing. In 2015, we bought another camper van. And our adventures continue, with the same three characters. The end goal? Not so much a goal as an idea. Maybe there will be some sailing involved. Definitely other countries. Hopefully, Panama...